Psycholinguistic research has shown that the influence of abstract syntactic knowledge on performance is shaped by particular sentences that have been experienced. To explore this idea, the authors applied a connectionist model of sentence production to the development and use of abstract syntax. The model makes use of (a) error-based learning to…

Contemporary civilization has created a fundamental contradiction between the intellectual approach to knowing and the technical approach to doing on the one hand, and the results of their application on the other. These approaches to knowing and doing begin with a process of abstraction that trades breadth for depth, while their application…

Abstraction is a major concept in computer science and serves as a powerful tool in software development. Pattern-oriented instruction (POI) is a pedagogical approach that incorporates patterns in an introductory computer science course in order to structure the learning of algorithmic problem solving. This paper examines abstraction processes in…

This paper describes the development, use, and analysis, of an educational tool inspired by the history of the optical mechanism of vision. We investigated 12-year-old students' reasoning about vision. Most of them explain it as the result of something coming either from the object or from the eye. Moreover, some of them think that light…

This article describes how first graders' sense of number can be developed through the perspective of measurement. (Contains 5 figures.)

Students' views about science were correlated with their approaches to lab practice. Three distinct cases are discussed in detail: empiricist-oriented, rationalist-oriented, and constructivist-oriented students. A coherent epistemological theory was constructed for each case, by considering the different degrees of certainty and confidence each…

Discusses three motives for and approaches to question-asking, and concludes that the approaches augment and complement each other by accentuating different aspects of the speech communication process. (MH)

This study indicated that the school performance and intelligence quotients of associative responders diverge significantly over time from those of nonassociative responders. This divergence becomes greater with age, suggesting that reliance on associative responding in preference to reasoning may cumulatively interfere with intellectual…

Outlines the logical empiricist philosophy and notes its influence on communication research. Suggests conceptual analysis and programmatic research as focuses for communication theorists. (MH)

Contemporary dispute among teachers of rhetoric between those who prefer the classical tradition of rhetoric and those who champion an epistemic view of rhetoric has antecedents among the disputes of the ancient Greek scholars. Some of the vital themes of epistemology can be traced back to Protagoras of Abdera, one of the two great leaders of the…

This paper presents two puzzles that have emerged in a series of completed and ongoing studies at Queen's University, Ontario. These puzzles concern teachers' professional knowledge, a term used to refer to the non-propositional forms of knowledge assumed to be of importance to professional action. This research assumed that the professional…

Children's natural curiosity should be more adequately satisfied, resarch has suggested--especially in grades 4 to 6. Traditionally, the scope and sequence approach which is a learning-what-others think or have thought rather than a learning-to-think-for-oneself method begins during the middle school years. It is interesting to observe that…

Research was conducted to compare evidence of implicit processing in children and adults. Implicit processing was defined as inductive cognitive activities which enable people to abstract complex knowledge from the environment. The knowledge acquired is tacit; it guides subjects' behavior in various situations without the subjects necessarily…

This report proposes a modification of Jean Piaget's concept of "creative abstraction," the mechanism of creative thought, which develops both intelligence and creative ideas. By reflecting on one's actions and the coordinations of actions, the individual constructs new relationships, links, rules, or correspondences between and among them.…

Among the 12 documents selected for this annotated bibliography of documents and journal articles in the ERIC database is an expert's argument that the brain's multipath and multimodal capacities are ignored by educators. Another writer fears that the "back-to-basics" movement may have eclipsed the prominence earlier accorded to thinking…